In the News

February 4, 2015

Meet a neurologist who’s mapping the human brain

“In the past century of neuroscience, there’s been a lot of analysis of individual neurons and synapses, and, more recently, imaging of the whole brain. But we scientists think everything of substance happens in between these two scales. It’s as if you’re studying New York City with a microscope and satellite images. But what you really want is to look at it on a human scale.” -Cori Bargmann

January 31, 2015

HIV: Latent reservoir of virus in rare immune cells could help develop cure

“Research at Rockefeller University suggests that a quiet body of immune cells that do not divide could harbour a reserve of HIV virus, a potential target for therapies aimed at curing rather than managing the disease.”

January 28, 2015

Dying to be free: The treatment for heroin addiction we aren’t using

“[Opiate addiction] ‘alters multiple regions in the brain,’ [Mary Jeanne] Kreek said, ‘including those that regulate reward, memory and learning, stress responsivity, and hormonal response, as well as executive function which is involved in decision-making — simply put, when to say yes and when to say no.’”

January 20, 2015

Drugs in dirt: Scientists appeal for help

“Dr. [Sean] Brady, head of the Laboratory of Genetically Encoded Small Molecules, said: ‘We hope that efforts to map nature’s microbial and chemical diversity will result in the discovery of both completely new medicines and better versions of existing medicines.'”

December 23, 2014

‘Senior moments’ could be coming to an end

“Professor Bruce McEwen, of The Rockefeller University, New York, said: ‘By examining the neurological changes that occurred after Riluzole treatment, we discovered one way in which the brain’s ability to reorganise itself, its neuroplasticity, can be marshalled to protect it against some of the deterioration that can accompany old age, at least in rodents.'”

December 22, 2014

The mind and its mysteries

“‘We do know from my own work on depression that there seems to be several different parts of the brain involved [in creativity]. Different parts of the brain are all speaking to each other. We’re trying to figure out how they’re speaking to each other.’

[Dr. Greengard] continued: ‘I’m sure our brains are working unconsciously. When you have a creative thought, it’s parts of the brain talking to each other without your awareness.'”

November 13, 2014

Scientists discover why mosquitoes love human blood

“ ‘It was a really good evolutionary move,’ said Leslie Vosshall of Rockefeller University in New York, who led the study published in the journal Nature, ‘We provide the ideal lifestyle for mosquitoes. We always have water around for them to breed in, we are hairless and we live in large groups.’ ”

November 9, 2014

Winners announced for the world’s richest science award

“[Dr.] Allis is considered the father of one of the hottest fields in 21st century science. Called epigenetics, it is the study of a phenomenon that 20th century biology said shouldn’t exist – changes in molecules that are outside the DNA but can nevertheless be passed from cell to cell or even from one generation to the next.”

October 27, 2014

The good news and the bad news about beating obesity

“We don’t ‘pillory people for being very tall or short,’ [Jeffrey] Friedman said, so it makes no sense to blame obese people for being that way–or for obese people to feel ashamed.”

October 23, 2014

Ebola: A crash course in fear and how it hurts us

“Bruce McEwen, a neuroscientist who studies stress at Rockefeller University in New York, said the fear can lead people to change their lifestyle, making them isolate themselves, lose sleep, stop exercising, change their diet for the worse and drink or smoke.”

October 16, 2014

Q&A: Torsten Wiesel

“Torsten Wiesel is president emeritus of Rockefeller University in New York City. He shared half of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with David Hubel for their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system. He tells Stefano Sandrone about his greatest scientific achievement and his vision of the future.”

October 9, 2014

Brave or reckless? Thrill-seekers’ brains can tell you

“‘It really has to do with the reckless and the brave,’ says Bruce McEwen at Rockefeller University, New York, who wasn’t involved with the work. The brave feel fear but are able to overcome it, whereas the reckless seem to have a brain that doesn’t react as it should to alert them to danger, he says.”

Reducing Carbon by Curbing Population

“As the threat of climate change has evolved from a fuzzy faraway concept to one of the central existential threats to humanity, scholars like Professor [Joel E.] Cohen have noted that reducing the burning of fossil fuels might be easier if there were fewer of us consuming them.”

July 28, 2014

Wanted: Biotech Startups in New York City

“A lot of the legal and commercial groundwork has been established between Accelerator and its partner institutions, which should help speed the business-development process, said Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president of Rockefeller University.”

July 27, 2014

Peter Marler, Graphic Decoder of Birdsong, Dies at 86

“Dr. Marler was one of the first ethologists to produce graphic snapshots of birdsong — streaks of ink on paper, like an electrocardiogram, showing the wave-frequency, modulation and pitch of various calls and songs.

From that data, Dr. Marler and his colleagues discovered that some species had repertoires of only a few songs while others had as many as 100. They found they could analyze and differentiate calls within the same species — calls for roosting, seeking food, mating, territory-marking, warning of danger and summoning help, known as mobbing, to ward off an intruder.”

July 16, 2014

Dialing Back Stress With A Bubble Bath, Beach Trip And Bees

“Stress raises our heart rate and ramps our immune systems to prepare for injury and danger. ‘The problem is if we don’t turn those responses off efficiently when the danger is over … they can cause damage,’ [Bruce] McEwen says.”

How spread of breast cancer could be stopped

“Professor Sohail Tavazoie, who led the research, said: ‘If we learn more about how this regulation works, we may in the future be able to generate drugs that prevent this protein from triggering metastatic disease.’”

July 9, 2014

Scientists Join the World of Crowdfunding

“’But science has yet to gain Veronica Mars status,’ notes Jeanne Garbarino, director of science outreach at Rockefeller University in New York, who has used crowdfunding and informally advised others. Instead, scientific projects tend to be far more modest, generally raising just thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.”

June 5, 2014

Obama N.I.H. Seeks $4.5 Billion to Try to Crack the Code of How Brains Function

“The report, from a committee led by Cori Bargmann of Rockefeller University and William Newsome of Stanford University, emphasizes technology development for the first five years, and use of the new technology in scientific inquiry in the second five years.”

“President Barack Obama lauded whiz kids at the White House Science Fair on Tuesday, including Elana Simon [daughter of Sanford Simon], an 18-year-old who helped research a rare liver cancer that she was diagnosed with at age 12.”

May 16, 2014

Hacking the mind: How to harness the power of the body’s greatest tool

“Ultimately, the neuroscience experts concluded, for all the research and progress that’s been done about the brain and its many powers, there’s still a far way to go. ‘It’s like the space program except it’s inner-space instead of outer space,’ [Cori] Bargmann said of existing research programs, including her own. “There are more connections between those nerve cells than there are stars in the Milky Way. I think there’s an incredible untapped potential in understanding the way the brain works.”

April 28, 2014

This land is your land

“Food, [Jesse Ausubel] told me, is a little like clothing. ‘There are large companies that turn out the blue jeans and T-shirts we all wear. We don’t mind large scale for that. But sometimes we all want a little something nicer, a little more fashionable. Even people without much money want something of their own or something they made themselves. Character matters, so does a sense of ownership. It’s the same story with food.'”

March 26, 2014

Science for the Benefit of Parents at The Rockefeller University

“Where can you find dozens of parents in a room with Nobel prize-winning scientists? At The Rockefeller University’s one-of-a-kind Parents and Science initiative. Launched in 2007, the initiative helps parents learn more about research in childhood health and behavior by meeting face-to-face with Rockefeller scientists.”

March 20, 2014

Your nose can smell at least 1 trillion scents

“As [Leslie] Vosshall put it: ‘The world is always changing. Plants are evolving new smells. Perfume companies are making new scents. You might move to some part of the world where you’ve never encountered the fruits and vegetables and flowers that grow there. But your nose is ready. With a sensory system that is that complex, we are fully ready for anything.”

March 14, 2014

51%: The Women’s Perspective

“Dr. Cori Bargmann of Rockefeller University studies how biology, our genes and the environment we live in can affect the way we act. She is especially interested in understanding social behaviors. Believe it or not, she studies worms to examine the underlying biology that can switch an individual from being a loner to a party animal, and vice versa.”

March 4, 2014

Injections providing protection against AIDS in monkeys, studies find

“Two studies [one by David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Rockefeller University] each found 100 percent protection in monkeys that got monthly injections of antiretroviral drugs, and there was evidence that a single shot every three months might work just as well. If the findings can be replicated in humans, they have the potential to overcome a major problem in AIDS prevention: that many people fail to take their antiretroviral pills regularly.”

February 27, 2014

Teen helps scientists study her own rare disease

“Making that idea work required a lot of help from real scientists: Her father, [Sanford Simon], who runs a cellular biophysics lab at The Rockefeller University; her surgeon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; and gene specialists at the New York Genome Center. Together, the team reported Thursday that they uncovered an oddity: A break in genetic material that left the ‘head’ of one gene fused to the ‘body’ of another. That results in an abnormal protein that forms inside the tumors but not in normal liver tissue, suggesting it might fuel cancer growth.”

January 28, 2014

Rockefeller University’s C. David Allis Wins Japan Prize

“Our major challenge, hopefully one taken up by the next generation of young scientists who are intrigued with epigenetics, will be to learn how to better harness the potential of the epigenetic mechanisms to bring about better health and living for many,” Dr. Allis said. “I look forward to that in the years ahead, and I am pleased that some of our work has contributed to this worthwhile goal.”

January 22, 2014

Rockefeller University’s Quest to Cure Everything

“While everyone’s eager for cures and discoveries, RU’s scientists openly share that generous donor-funding encourages them to be productive and take risks, but thankfully relieves them of the fear of losing funding—which research scientists elsewhere often face. Neurobiologist Dr. Leslie Vosshall says, ‘This is one of the few places on earth where you’re given a cloistered environment to test crazy ideas and with plenty of support you don’t have to worry about bringing in grant money.'”

December 6, 2013

Pearl Meister Greengard prize winner followed a gut feeling for 16 years

“Pediatric neurologist and neuroscientist Huda Y. Zoghbi won Rockefeller University’s 10th annual Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, which on Thursday night she attributed in part to following ‘a gut feeling.’ For 16 years, she tracked down a gene mutation that causes Rett Syndrome, a form of autism that only affects girls. None of her male colleagues supported her hunch that Rett Syndrome could be a genetic disorder.”

December 1, 2013

Biology’s coefficient: Joel Cohen uses the tools of mathematics to deconstruct questions of life

“That study of Earth’s human population is only a drop in the bucket of the diverse, seemingly disparate, subjects that Cohen has addressed in his five-decade-long career. His studies of food webs, asbestos-related litigation, and infectious disease have resulted in more than 390 papers and 14 books, and all these pursuits are underwritten by Cohen’s passionate belief that mathematics contains the most powerful tools for considering the problems of life.”

“[The] first event, The Future Of The Brain, has a great lineup. You’ll hear from Cori Bargmann, the Breathrough Prize-winning neurobiologist from Rockefeller University, whose work with roundworms has shed new light on how neural circuits are formed and function.”

September 30, 2013

NYC cockroach study: Bugs vary by neighborhood

“Over the past year, Mark Stoeckle and his team from Rockefeller University did some pretty dirty work, collecting hundreds of dead cockroaches for the National Cockroach Project, a study aimed at analyzing the usually unwelcome creatures.”

September 4, 2013

A Google Map of Our Brains: The Next Chapter in Neuroscience

“For a lot of the way that different brain regions work together to generate complex functions, we’re really stumbling around in the dark,” said Dr. Cori Bargmann, a Rockefeller University neuroscientist and co-chair of the project. “The point of the brain initiative is to turn on some lights.”

August 2, 2013

Engineering in Service of a Dark Art

“Biology graduate student Tom McDonagh, of Rockefeller University, likes working with light. For his Ph.D. he built a spinning microscope that uses centrifugal force to test the gripping power of different molecules. McDonagh also innovates with light outside the lab, in tech-savvy shadow puppet plays.”

July 3, 2013

U.S. university heads in Israel to establish academic ties

“I was amazed to watch two paraplegics walk independently using the ReWalk robotic device and moved when they showed how leaving their wheelchairs has transformed their lives,” said Rockefeller University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, also the head of its Laboratory of Brain Development and Repair.

June 30, 2013

All the buzz about mosquitoes

“[Leslie Vosshall‘s] dedication to her work seems jaw-droppingly insane, especially at feeding times.”

June 3, 2013

A Mosquito that Won’t Ruin a Barbecue

“To create the mutant mosquitoes, Dr. Vosshall and her colleagues altered an odor receptor, orco. Not only did the resulting mosquitoes struggle to tell the difference between humans and other animals, but they were unable to detect the presence of DEET, the insect repellent, before it was too late.”

“I think the problems of life are the most fascinating problems, and I love the clarity of mathematical tools…. I think of humans as embedded in a network of relationships with the species we eat, the species that eat us and the species we share the planet with. And this is helpful for understanding things as important to us as our own health and our survival and our well-being.”

May 6, 2013

Christian de Duve, 95, dies; Nobel-winning biochemist

“[Dr. de Duve] discovered the lysosome, a tiny sack filled with enzymes that functions like a garbage disposal, destroying bacteria or parts of the cell that are old or worn out. His discoveries helped unravel the biology of Tay-Sachs disease and more than two dozen other genetic diseases in which a shortage of lysosomal enzymes causes waste to accumulate in cells and eventually destroy them.”

April 12, 2013

Looking to nature for antibiotic inspirations

“Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacterial cells, employ an arsenal of chemical weapons. Microbiologist Vincent Fischetti of Rockefeller University describes using tricks learned from the phage in developing new antibiotics that may be effective even where others fail.”

April 2, 2013

Obama to unveil initiative to map the human brain

“A working group at the N.I.H., described by the officials as a ‘dream team,’ and led by Cori Bargmann of Rockefeller University and William Newsome of Stanford University, will be charged with coming up with a plan, a time frame, specific goals and cost estimates for future budgets.”

April 1, 2013

Good Day New York Book Club interviews Erec Stebbins

“Erec Stebbins is an award-winning researcher at Rockefeller University. In his spare time, he has written an absorbing thriller about an FBI agent tracking down home grown terrorists. The book is called The Ragnarök Conspiracy.”

“In short, even prior to the 5 percent budget cut brought about last week by sequestration, our basic research enterprise has been in crisis. This erosion in our basic science investment has occurred at the very time that the biomedical revolution has opened huge opportunities to advance our knowledge of disease.”

February 23, 2013

Scientists win millions for breakthrough research

“Dr. Cori Bargmann of Rockefeller University received an unexpected phone call…she was told that she had been chosen to receive a $3 million cash prize for her research in brain development, which will hopefully provide breakthroughs in disorders like autism and schizophrenia.”

February 20, 2013

How stress gets under the skin: Q&A with neuroscientist Bruce McEwen

“Be physically active, get a good diet, [get] adequate sleep, [create] social support, have a good hobby, meditate. All of these things really are common sense and now we know they do have the benefits of improving our brain architecture.”

January 26, 2013

Scarred for life? The biology of childhood hardship

“Elsewhere, research by one of us, Bruce McEwen, has closed in on how pre- and postnatal stress affects a complex set of interactions between the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland and the adrenal glands (the HPA axis). These are all part of the body’s neuroendocrine system, which controls our reactions to stress and regulates many things, including digestion, the immune system, emotions, sexuality and the storage and expenditure of energy.”

January 22, 2013

Food Fraud? Watchdog Group Raises Concerns

“High school students supervised by New York’s Rockefeller University found alarming results in testing done over the last three years. Sixteen percent of the grocery store food they DNA tested, from expensive sheep’s milk cheese that had only cow DNA in it, to caviar that wasn’t made of sturgeon eggs, to pet food with no meat, all had counterfeit ingredients.”

January 20, 2013

Epigenetics: How Our Experiences Affect Our Offspring

“We were all brought up to think the genome was it,” said Rockefeller University molecular biologist C. David Allis. “It’s really been a watershed in understanding that there is something beyond the genome.”

January 3, 2013

New Method Enables Multiplex Genome Engineering

“A consortium of scientists [including The Rockefeller University] announced that they had devised a way to enable simultaneous editing of several sites within the mammalian genome. The technology, based on a bacterial defense system against viruses, could offer an easy-to-use, less-expensive way to engineer organisms that produce biofuels, to design animal models to study human disease, and to develop new therapies, among other potential applications.”

December 21, 2012

Is the Cure for Cancer Inside You?

“In the long struggle that was to come, [Ralph] Steinman would try anything and everything that might extend his life, but he placed his greatest hope in a field he helped create, one based on discoveries for which he would earn his Nobel Prize. He hoped to reprogram his immune cells to defeat his cancer — to concoct a set of treatments from his body’s own ingredients, which could take over from his chemotherapy and form a customized, dynamic treatment for his disease.”

December 20, 2012

Farmland Peaks, Crop Space to Revert Back to Nature, Report Finds

“Humanity has reached what Rockefeller University scientists, in a new report, call ‘peak farmland.’ In the next half-century, a geographical area more than twice the size of France — or equivalent to 10 Iowas — will return to its natural state from farmland, they predict.”

“[O]ceans have actually become very loud due to man-made noise from oil rigs, sonar and ship propellers. And scientists are worried that all that added noise is hurting marine life. So they’re planning a massive experiment to quiet the ocean and study what kind of impact that quieting has. It’s called the ‘International Quiet Ocean Experiment’. WBUR All Things Considered host Sacha Pfeiffer spoke about this project with Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University in New York and an adjunct faculty member at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.”

October 15, 2012

Good Viruses Will Fight Acne as 1915 Discovery Is Revived

“The research re-energizes a century-old treatment method that was abandoned with the rise of antibiotics during World War II. As germs have built up a resistance to those drugs in recent years, scientists are seeking alternatives and the virus strategy “is in vogue again,” said Vincent Fischetti, a biologist at Rockefeller University in New York who is one of the pioneers of the revived approach.”

September 12, 2012

How testosterone may alter the brain after exercise

“The exercise in this experiment was quite mild,” [Bruce S. McEwen] says — the equivalent of jogging at a pace at which someone could speak (or squeak) to a companion. “That’s achievable for most people,” he concludes, “and the evidence suggests that it will improve brain health.”

September 12, 2012

Defusing the war of words over organic food

“Is there a less polarized way to think about the future of farming? Jesse H. Ausubel, an environmental scientist who directs the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, thinks he’s found one… His claim is that high-yield farming, that is, high-tech, non-organic agricultural practices that produce more crops per square foot, is actually kinder to the environment than lower-tech, organic farming.”

September 3, 2012

A Redoubt of Learning Holds Firm

“More broadly, [Paul Nurse] doesn’t fret about American dominance. That is just the way it is. Perhaps some cultural differences even accrue to the British side of the ledger. ‘The U.S.A. has a very strong work ethic, and you keep a very close eye to the cutting edge,’ he says. ‘We are a bit lazier. We drink more. But sometimes the science we produce is rather quirkier and more innovative.'”

August 7, 2012

Growing Pains: Nations Balance Growth, Power Needs

“These days electricity is so important to industrial society that providing adequate power isn’t good enough. For example, businesses that rely on the Internet simply can’t afford to be without power, even for a minute. Sure, it was a nuisance for Indian commuters on electric trains to get stranded. But, [Jesse] Ausubel says, the risk to our interconnected world runs much deeper. ‘It’s not just the railroads stopping, it really is the signal that if you want to be in the 21st century economy, you need to be very, very good at electricity,’ he says.”

August 6, 2012

Technology: Problem or Solution?

“On the other hand, ask [Jesse Ausubel] about climate change (a subject he helped make the hot topic it is today), or overpopulation, or deforestation and you’ll get a surprisingly reassuring answer: things are getting better, we’re on the right track. It’s an attitude based on his extensive analyses of past trends in energy production, population growth, consumer behavior, and a host of other factors.”

July 20, 2012

Could Bacteria-Fighting Viruses Replace Overused Antibiotics?

“The first trials for patient safety are expected to start this year. It is a moment that Vincent Fischetti, a 71-year-old microbiologist at the Rockefeller University, has been approaching for decades. A child of working-class parents on Long Island, he once thought he would be a dentist before getting hooked on microbiology as an undergraduate.”

July 9, 2012

In Dieting, Magic Isn’t a Substitute for Science

“We asked Dr. Jules Hirsch, emeritus professor and emeritus physician in chief at Rockefeller University, who has been researching obesity for nearly 60 years, about the state of the research. Dr. Hirsch…wrote some of the classic papers describing why it is so hard to lose weight and why it usually comes back.”

July 1, 2012

Waging a losing war against mosquitoes

“We had no winter in the Northeast this year, and so there’s a lot of predictions from mosquito control experts that we’re going to have a really huge season of high populations of mosquitoes, and so with that, more disease transmission,” said Leslie Vosshall, who runs Rockefeller University’s Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior in New York City. Along with her staff, she’s trying to find out exactly how mosquitoes hunt humans.

June 20, 2012

Peak planet: Are we starting to consume less?

“That leads demographer Joel Cohen to predict that ‘many of us may live to see population peak in the middle of this century.’ If so, that would fulfill the first necessary condition to begin to reduce our demands on the planet.”

“An analysis by Jesse Ausubel and Paul Waggoner of Rockefeller University in New York City suggests that this trend of more economic bang per resource buck is widespread among developing economies, following an initial ‘cheap and dirty’ phase of growth.”

May 20, 2012

Out for Blood

“‘They’re hunters,’ says Leslie Vosshall, the Robin Chemers Neustein Professor at the Rockefeller University of New York, an expert on the science of smell and someone who is not afraid to put her arm into a chamber of mosquitoes and get bitten a lot. ‘And they’ve adapted to be very sensitive to the smell of their prey, be it birds or humans.’”

May 14, 2012

The Veins of a Leaf: Revealing Nature’s Mathematical System

“Nature is a great architect, and the vascular network – or veins – of a leaf are key to its structure. Mathematical physicists [Marcelo Magnasco and Eleni Katifori] at Rockefeller University use fluorescent dye and time lapse photography to digitally study microscopic patterns within these vascular networks in order to better understand how nutrients flow through the leaf and into the plant’s cells.”

May 3, 2012

Remote-controlled genes trigger insulin production

“The work, in which a team used radio waves to switch on engineered insulin-producing genes in mice, is published today in Science. Jeffrey Friedman, a molecular geneticist at the Rockefeller University in New York and lead author of the study, says that in the short term, the results will lead to better tools to allow scientists to manipulate cells non-invasively. But with refinement, he thinks, clinical applications could also be possible.”

April 19, 2012

Gift to Support Lab Collaboration

“A pair of Rockefeller University scientists will forever be honored with a new professorship, designed to pay tribute to the spirit of collaboration and mentoring. It was 1970 when Ralph M. Steinman came to Rockefeller University to be a postdoc in the lab of Zanvil A. Cohn. It was in those first few years of research on how an immune response is triggered in the human body, that the men came to identify a novel cell type. They coined the term dendritic cells.”

March 28, 2012

Winners unlock big questions on cells

“Dr. James E. Darnell Jr. and Robert G. Roeder, Ph.D., both of whom work at Rockefeller University in New York City, will receive the [Albany Medical Center] prize during a May 11 ceremony in Albany. The $500,000 prize is the largest award in medicine and science in the United States. Darnell and Roeder, working separately over more than five decades, discovered how cells work and control protein production — activities that are the foundation for every process in the body.”

March 23, 2012

Pair will receive $250G for outstanding research

“A former student and teacher duo at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will receive $250,000 from the March of Dimes next month for creating advances in treating skin cancers, severe burns and other skin diseases…[Elaine] Fuchs began working in Green’s lab in 1977 and throughout their careers they have shared their scientific findings, many of which have translated into specific treatments toward pioneering new technologies that explain the molecular underpinnings of skin stem cells and inherited skin disorders.”

February 7, 2012

“Norton D. Zinder, a researcher who helped lay the basis for the new field of molecular biology in the 1950s and ’60s and who played a crucial role in the politics of decoding the human genome, died on Friday in a nursing home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. He was 83.”

December 19, 2011

“But the rule against posthumous awards has now been violated several times — most recently this month, when the prize in medicine was given to the widow of Dr. Ralph M. Steinman, a scientist at Rockefeller University in Manhattan who died of pancreatic cancer at age 68 on Sept. 30, three days before his election.”

“Optimists such as Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University in New York, see a long-term and unstoppable trend that is the logical outcome of what economists call the environmental Kuznets curve, after its inventor Simon Kuznets. This suggests that as countries industrialize, they pass through an early “cheap and dirty” phase when they waste resources and generate massive pollution, but they pass a tipping point beyond which they begin to invest in using resources more efficiently.”

November 14, 2011

“Sir Paul Nurse, 62, has the effusive and infectious enthusiasm of a natural leader who, it is obvious, leads by example rather than threat. By his own admission, he has an idealistic view of science ‘as a liberalising and progressive force for humanity.’ He sees science as a truly international activity that breaks down barriers between the peoples of the world. Science, he says, is a ‘profoundly aesthetic experience which gives pleasure not unlike the reading of a great poem.'”

November 8, 2011

93-Year-Old Wins Prestigious Science Award

“At 93-years-old, Brenda Milner is responsible for some of the biggest discoveries in the science of memory. And she’s still working today, at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She’s also the winner of the prestigious Pearl Meister Greengard Prize for her achievements, which includes $100,000 in award money.”

November 6, 2011

‘Nosy’ and Observant, a Neuroscientist Continues Her Memorable Career at 93

“Psychology students who read about Brenda Milner’s seminal work with amnesia patients nearly 60 years ago might not suspect that she is, at 93, still engaged full time in research and teaching. Nor that last week, in New York, she would be picking up a major award, the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, which honors female researchers who have made extraordinary contributions to the biomedical sciences. She is the eighth recipient of the prize since its creation by Paul Greengard, a neuroscientist at Rockefeller University, who used his own funds, including his award for winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with contributions from his university and other donors.”

October 31, 2011

Among large economies, the United States is second only to Australia in the amount of carbon dioxide it emits per capita, according to the latest figures from the federal Energy Information Administration. “Every person you add to the country makes all these tremendous demands on the environment,” said Joel E. Cohen, chief of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University and Columbia University. But experts are reluctant to suggest an ideal birth rate. “There isn’t any magic number,” Dr. Cohen said.

October 26, 2011

“But it is also possible, said Dr. Jules Hirsch of Rockefeller University, that researchers just do not know enough about obesity to prescribe solutions. One thing is clear, he said: ‘A vast effort to persuade the public to change its habits just hasn’t prevented or cured obesity.’ ‘We need more knowledge,’ Dr. Hirsch said. ‘Condemning the public for their uncontrollable hedonism and the food industry for its inequities just doesn’t seem to be turning the tide.'”

September 19, 2011

“Across town at the Rockefeller University, the new science facility, by Mitchell/Giurgola Architects, exists for no other purpose than to bring people out of isolation. It’s an addendum, a voluptuous glass link, seven stories high, interposed between two preexisting laboratory buildings. You enter what appears to be a modest lobby, and ahead of you the space opens up, Guggenheim-like, into an atrium whose floorplan is elliptical and whose side elevation is shaped like an hourglass. Everything about this unusual building tells you that scientific research can be conducted in an environment of both zest and dignity.”

September 16, 2011

“‘Over 2,700 marine scientists in over 80 nations made the first-ever census of marine life over the past decade,” said Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, speaking recently at a packed Secret Science Club program at the Bell House near the Gowanus Canal.”

August 30, 2011

“Peter Holt, a researcher at Rockefeller University in New York, said that overweight patients who have the common ‘stomach stapling’ operations are likely to have large concentrations of alcohol in the blood even if they drink little, which take a long time to wear off. As a result, Dr. Holt suggested that all patients who undergo weight-loss surgery should be warned about the effects on their ability to drink and should think about avoiding alcohol completely if they drive.”

August 21, 2011

“Dr. Greengard, 85, is still making breakthroughs. In an offshoot of his award-winning research, the director of the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research recently discovered a new pathway for potentially treating the disease. He identified a protein in mice that stimulates the production of beta amyloid, a substance that forms plaque in the brain and disrupts memory and other cognitive functions. And in an interesting development, he found that a cancer drug, Gleevec, disarms the protein.”

August 15, 2011

“Consider the investigation of Mike Rossner, executive director of the Rockefeller University Press. In 2002, while trying to format a scientific image in Photoshop that was going to appear in one of the journals, Rossner noticed that the background of the image contained different intensities of pixels. This led Rossner and his colleagues to begin analyzing every image in every accepted paper.”

August 13, 2011

“‘The problems are here and now,’ said Joel Cohen, head of the laboratory of populations at New York’s Rockefeller University. ‘People forget there are a billion chronically hungry people; every day those people wake up and they’re hungry all day, and they go to sleep hungry.’”

August 5, 2011

After the success of protease inhibitors in HIV, research groups around the world began investigating whether the same mechanism would work for hepatitis C. In 1997 Charles M. Rice, now head of the laboratory of virology and infectious disease at the Rockefeller University, showed that mutating the viral protease in hepatitis C–infected chimpanzees stopped the virus, the first clue about the enzyme’s importance.

June 7, 2011

Joel E. Cohen: “[René Dubos] wrote near the end of this essay: ‘For some human beings, perhaps for most, living implies the kind of Life envisaged by Spinoza — with the effort that caps nature with culture, existence with meaning, and facts with forms.’ Dubos was one of the lucky humans whose efforts capped nature with culture, existence with meaning, and facts with forms.”

June 6, 2011

“With the Great Reversal, the study‘s authors believe a tipping point has been reached, with countries now able to pursue policies to boost their forests’ thickness and carbon capacities dramatically. Jesse Ausubel, a director at the Rockefeller University and a co-author, said: ‘The enlarging forests in almost 50 nations studied may signal the start of a welcome and necessary restoration.’”

May 5, 2011

Joel E. Cohen: “Of today’s (almost) 7 billion people, nearly one billion are chronically hungry. Why? Roughly one third of grain is consumed by domestic animals. More than one sixth of grain goes into industrial products like biofuels and starch, seeds and other uses. Less than half of world cereal production feeds humans. The world chooses to feed its machines and its domestic animals before it feeds its people.”

April 27, 2011

“‘To tell different wines apart, a good memory is required,’ says Leslie Vosshall, a professor at Rockefeller University. ‘It would be like going to a museum where someone shows you 10 paintings and then you have to express some preference about them. It would help if you could say, well in the first painting, I really liked the way the skirts were painted, and in the second, the facial expressions were really good.’”

April 26, 2011

“Researchers found that painkillers such as aspirin and ibuprofen appear to decrease the effectiveness of a popular class of antidepressants that includes Prozac and Celexa. The finding, published Monday, may help explain why even the most effective antidepressants don’t work for everyone. At best only about two-thirds of patients respond effectively to Celexa and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. ‘Physicians should consider the advantages and disadvantages of giving an anti-inflammatory with the antidepressant depending on how severe the pain is and how depressed they are,’ said Paul Greengard, senior author on the paper.”

April 26, 2011

“‘Dinochelus ausubeli’ was the name conferred earlier this year on a strange deep sea monster, a lobster discovered off the Philippine coast whose right claw is elongated into a fearsome pincer. The new species was named not after its discoverer, but in honor of the person under whose auspices a fleet of 540 ships from 80 nations has found the lobster and 6,000 other new marine species in the last 10 years. He is Jesse H. Ausubel, a Rockefeller University environmental researcher who is also vice president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation of New York.”

March 6, 2011

“One hundred thousand of the world’s most valuable rodents live on York Avenue as residents of Rockefeller University, whose relative obscurity among the city’s higher-learning establishments belies its elite status in the medical community. (Twenty-three Nobel laureates have done work at the school, which doesn’t offer undergrad degrees.) A few of its more cooperative mice — and one rat — recently took turns in front of our cameras.”

March 4, 2011

“If you were writing a play, the sequence of the genome is like having the list of characters at the beginning of the play. You can’t write the play without the list of characters, that’s essential, but actually there’s a lot of work that has to go on that depends on that human genome sequence but which isn’t simply a consequence of it. It’s a prerequisite but it’s not the end of the story.”

February 22, 2011

“So what’s not right about food? Based on an analysis of Earth’s resources, our planet should be able to sustain 11 billion people on a vegetarian diet, said Joel Cohen, a population expert at the Rockefeller University. But among the current population of 7 billion, ‘a billion of those are hungry’ already, he said. One of the reasons he sees is that humans are sharing their agricultural grains with livestock as well as machines (in the form of feedstock for biofuel conversion). ‘We’re using less than half of the cereal we grow to feed humans,’ Cohen said.”

February 21, 2011

“‘It took until about 1800 or 1825 to put the first billion people on the planet. We added the most recent billion in 12 or 13 years. We anticipate two billion more by 2050.’ That’s Joel Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University in New York. ‘In the last half century, people have estimated human-carrying capacities for the Earth that have ranged from less than one billion to more than a trillion. They can’t all be right. In fact, those numbers are political numbers, not scientific numbers. Because the question how many people can the earth support is an incomplete question, and doesn’t take account of with what technologies, at what average level of well-being, with what distribution of income, with what political and economic institutions.’”

We show that cyclin A (CycA) and regulator of cyclin A1, essential cell cycle factors, function in postmitotic neurons to promote sleep in Drosophila melanogaster. Reducing the abundance of CycA in neurons delayed the wake-sleep transition, caused multiple arousals from sleep, and reduced the homeostatic response to sleep deprivation.

We assessed the efficacy and safety of brodalumab (AMG 827), a human anti-interleukin-17-receptor monoclonal antibody, for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. An improvement of at least 75% and at least 90% in the PASI score at week 12 was seen in 77% and 72%, respectively, of the patients in the 140-mg brodalumab group and in 82% and 75%, respectively, of the patients in the 210-mg group, as compared with 0% in the placebo group (P<0.001 for all comparisons). Brodalumab significantly improved plaque psoriasis in this 12-week, phase 2 study.

We describe the discovery of ciliobrevins, the first specific small-molecule antagonists of cytoplasmic dynein. Ciliobrevins perturb protein trafficking within the primary cilium, leading to their malformation and Hedgehog signalling blockade. Ciliobrevins also prevent spindle pole focusing, kinetochore-microtubule attachment, melanosome aggregation and peroxisome motility in cultured cells. We further demonstrate the ability of ciliobrevins to block dynein-dependent microtubule gliding and ATPase activity in vitro.

We describe a novel mechanism by which influenza virus affects host cells through the interaction of influenza non-structural protein 1 (NS1) with the infected cell epigenome. We show that the NS1 protein of influenza A H3N2 subtype possesses a histone-like sequence (histone mimic) that is used by the virus to target the human PAF1 transcription elongation complex (hPAF1C). We demonstrate that binding of NS1 to hPAF1C depends on the NS1 histone mimic and results in suppression of hPAF1C-mediated transcriptional elongation.

Effective antiviral immunity depends on the ability of infected cells or cells triggered with virus-derived nucleic acids to produce type I interferon (IFN), which activates transcription of numerous antiviral genes. However, disproportionately strong or chronic IFN expression is a common cause of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. We describe an epigenetic mechanism that determines cell type–specific differences in IFN and IFN-stimulated gene (ISG) expression in response to exogenous signals.

In Caenorhabditis elegans, programmed death of the linker cell, which leads gonadal elongation, proceeds independently of caspases and apoptotic effectors. To identify genes promoting linker-cell death, we performed a genome-wide RNA interference screen. We show that linker-cell death requires the gene pqn-41, encoding an endogenous polyglutamine-repeat protein.

In the absence of recurrent DNA damage, translocations between Igh or Myc and all other genes are directly related to their contact frequency. Conversely, translocations associated with recurrent site-directed DNA damage are proportional to the rate of DNA break formation, as measured by replication protein A accumulation at the site of damage.

We present the crystal structure of human TRAAK at a resolution of 3.8 angstroms. The channel comprises two protomers, each containing two distinct pore domains, which create a two-fold symmetric K+ channel. The extracellular surface features a helical cap, 35 angstroms tall, that creates a bifurcated pore entryway and accounts for the insensitivity of two–pore domain K+ channels to inhibitory toxins. Two diagonally opposed gate-forming inner helices form membrane-interacting structures that may underlie this channel’s sensitivity to chemical and mechanical properties of the cell membrane.

Neutrophils use immunoglobulins to clear antigen, but their role in immunoglobulin production is unknown. Here we identified neutrophils around the marginal zone (MZ) of the spleen, a B cell area specialized in T cell–independent immunoglobulin responses to circulating antigen.

Here, we report genetic labeling of LTMR subtypes and visualization of their relative patterns of axonal endings in hairy skin and the spinal cord. We found that each of the three major hair follicle types of trunk hairy skin (guard, awl/auchene, and zigzag hairs) is innervated by a unique and invariant combination of LTMRs; thus, each hair follicle type is a functionally distinct mechanosensory end organ.

We present structures for the ATP-bound state of the clamp loader complex from bacteriophage T4, bound to an open clamp and primer-template DNA. The structures explain how synergy among the loader, the clamp, and DNA can trigger ATP hydrolysis and release of the closed clamp on DNA.

Here we reveal that endogenous miR-126, an miRNA silenced in a variety of common human cancers, non-cell-autonomously regulates endothelial cell recruitment to metastatic breast cancer cells, in vitro and in vivo. Through loss-of-function and epistasis experiments, we delineate an miRNA regulatory network’s individual components as novel and cell-extrinsic regulators of endothelial recruitment, angiogenesis and metastatic colonization.

Using exome sequencing of individuals with Myhre syndrome, we identified SMAD4 as a candidate gene that contributes to this syndrome on the basis of its pivotal role in the bone morphogenetic pathway (BMP) and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β signaling. We identified three distinct heterozygous missense SMAD4 mutations affecting the codon for Ile500 in 11 individuals with Myhre syndrome.

Here we present the Ca(2+)-bound conformation of the gating ring. This structure shows how one layer of the gating ring, in response to the binding of Ca(2+), opens like the petals of a flower. The degree to which it opens explains how Ca(2+) binding can open the transmembrane pore. These findings present a molecular basis for Ca(2+) activation of K(+) channels and suggest new possibilities for targeting the gating ring to treat conditions such as asthma and hypertension.

We determined crystal structures of σ domain 2 bound to single-stranded DNA bearing -10 element sequences. The structures, along with biochemical data, support a model where the recognition of the -10 element sequence drives initial promoter opening as the bases of the nontemplate strand are extruded from the DNA double-helix and captured by σ.

Early events in atherosclerosis occur in the aortic intima and involve monocytes that become macrophages. We looked for these cells in the steady state adult mouse aorta, and surprisingly, we found a dominance of dendritic cells (DCs) in the intima.

Here, we report a 2.3-Å resolution crystal structure of Drosophila CRY with an intact C terminus. The C-terminal helix docks in the analogous groove that binds DNA substrates in PLs. Conserved Trp 536 juts into the CRY catalytic centre to mimic PL recognition of DNA photolesions. The FAD anionic semiquinone found in the crystals assumes a conformation to facilitate restructuring of the tail helix. These results help reconcile the diverse functions of the CRY/PL family by demonstrating how conserved protein architecture and photochemistry can be elaborated into a range of light-driven functions.

The nuclear pore complex encloses a central channel for nucleocytoplasmic transport, which is thought to consist of three nucleoporins, Nup54, Nup58, and Nup62. However, the structure and composition of the channel are elusive. We determined the crystal structures of the interacting domains between these nucleoporins and pieced together the molecular architecture of the mammalian transport channel.

Here, we present the first crystal structures of a G protein-gated K+ channel. By comparing the wild-type structure to that of a constitutively active mutant, we identify a global conformational change through which G proteins could open a G loop gate in the cytoplasmic domain. These data provide a structural basis for understanding multiligand regulation of GIRK channel gating.

Researchers found that exposure to the signal TGF-β causes changes in mouse tumor stem cells that help them evade a widely used anti-cancer drug. This did not happen to cells that did not receive TGF-β. More »

The enzyme Cas9 is well known for its ability to make precise cuts in a genome. New research reveals a new role for Cas9 in its native bacteria: helping the microbial immune system acquire a memory of an invading virus. More »

Researchers have found that the immune system fights a flu infection by turning off cellular enzymes the virus needs to put the final touches on new viral particles. The unfinished particles cannot spread infection to new cells. More »

As part of an effort to identify DNA found throughout New York City, students in Rockefeller’s Science Outreach Program have been swabbing surfaces in the subway system. Their work has turned up bacteria resistant to two common antibiotics. More »

Considered one of the most prestigious prizes in medicine, the Wolf Prize recognizes Ravetch’s work on the molecular basis of the immune response, including the Fc receptor system that mediates antibody function in disease and health. More »

When researchers sequenced and compared sites where the virus had integrated into the genomes of infected CD4 T cells, they found evidence dormant but dangerous HIV was hiding out in cells that had never been copied – not the more abundant cloned cells. More »

By identifying genes that become activated in cancer cells that successfully metastasize to the liver, researchers at Rockefeller have implicated metabolic processes within the liver as a possible means by which starving transient cancer cells can go on to form deadly new colonies. More »

Experiments show that a protein already implicated in degeneration, called Sarm1, functions to trigger the MAP kinase pathway. Inactivation of this pathway at any of three levels could block the death of damaged axons.More »

Tavazoie, who joined Rockefeller in 2009, works to understand how cancer cells become able to escape a tumor and invade other organs, a process known as metastasis. He searches for genes and molecular pathways cancer cells exploit in order to metastasize and, with that knowledge, hopes to develop future treatments to prevent or interfere with the process.More »

Because cabotegravir would require only one injection every three months, researchers hope this new drug, which has begun clinical testing, could improve some patients’ ability to take HIV prevention medication properly. More »

Paul Cohen, a molecular biologist and cardiologist, is returning to Rockefeller where he did his graduate work. In his new lab, Cohen will study the molecular origins of obesity-related metabolic disease with the goal of developing treatments. More »

Like humans, rhesus macaque monkeys have a network of small tareas within their brains that respond to images of faces. New research shows these so-called face patches also respond selectively to changing expressions and other facial motion. More »

Rockefeller University scientists Jeffrey M. Friedman and Leslie B. Vosshall have been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow. Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. More »

After experiments showed treatment prevented normal decline in aging rats’ spatial memory, researchers found changes known to improve connections, and as a result, communication, between certain neurons within the brain’s hippocampus. More »

A team is developing a system that would make it possible to remotely control biological targets in living animals — rapidly, without wires, implants or drugs. During a test, they used radio waves or a magnetic field to turn on insulin production in mice. More »

New research links stem cell metabolism with those cells’ decision to pick a fate or renew themselves. In experiments, exposure to a key metabolite called alpha-ketoglutarate enhanced the renewal of mouse embryonic stem cells. More »

The Community Acquired MRSA Project (“CAMP2″) will enroll patients with skin infections, provide English- and Spanish-language health education materials about community-acquired drug-resistant staph infections, and incorporate a home visit program by community health workers to evaluate the effectiveness of household decontamination in preventing reinfection and transmission. More »

The annual recipient of the NY/NJ CEO Lifetime Achievement Award is nominated and elected by peers from within the biotechnology industry and it recognizes the extraordinary contributions of the awardees toward advancing medical science and products that address unmet medical needs, as well as in helping to create an environment that fosters the growth of the industry in the New York metropolitan area.More »